Volhynian land leases 3

The last lease from this brief series is much later than the first two, from 1848. It also differs in that both the landlord (Christoph Gering) and the renters are Mennonite. As will become evident below, the lease reflects a significantly different situation than what we have previously seen. As before, we begin with the lease terms of most relevance to our question about real estate taxes on land leased by Benjamin Buller and other Mennonites (see here; once again we have Rod Ratzlaff to thank for his editing and posting of the lease).

Zabara, formerly known as Dosidorf. The village was roughly 40 miles
north of Antonovka, the village of the 1804 lease.

1. The Mennonite Christoph Gering, residing on his own property in the colony Dosidorf, will lease to eight families, eight huben of land, including eight houses, gardens, fields, meadows, and woods. There is also unarable land which separates the eight huben from the border to Groß Prawatin and Klein Prawatin and Zakrenicze. This land shall be distributed among the eight families so each receives one hube of land, and each farmer has an equal share of arable and unarable land.

2. Rent on this land and buildings shall be paid on 24 March 1848, and thereafter for twenty years, [page 2] that is, until 24 March 1868. The annual amount of rent to be paid is 18 silver rubles for each hube. The settlers agree to make payments twice annually: on 24 September and on 24 March, over the amount of nine silver rubles each. After twenty years have passed, the settlers will commit to stay on the land for another term of twenty years, and continue with subsequent twenty-year terms, unless both parties agree to ask the court to draft a new contract. 

As with the first two leases, the agreement begins by describing in general the location and amount of land in view. A hube was anywhere between 30 and 50 acres, so the lease covers somewhere between 240 and 400 acres.

Noteworthy is the mention of eight houses. The previous lease agreements provided access to lumber that the settlers could use to build their own houses; this contract is for already-developed land. This is a significant difference and is reflected in the terms of the contract: this agreement requires renters to pay rent from day one; there is no rent-free period mentioned.

The length of the contract is a new development: the earlier contracts were open-ended, but this one is subject to renewal every twenty years. Also new is the biannual payment of rent, in contrast to the annual payment in the earlier agreements.

The subject of taxes is addressed in paragraph 5, although not as clearly as one would like:

5. All Imperial taxes that are currently required, those that may be mandated in the future, [page 4] and also the ______ [Poschline?] for the libations, as well as any other requirements, must be paid by the settlers, without causing inconveniences to the landlord. The settlers must also keep the street and the bridge on their eight huben land in good repair. 

My sense is that the imperial taxes were not real-estate taxes but were rather additional taxes that the Mennonites had to pay; this impression is given by the immediately following mention of taxes that might be imposed on them in the future. If this is correct, then the payment of real-estate taxes is not addressed in this lease. Presumably the landlord paid those taxes out of the rent he collected twice a year. The fact that the settlers paid rent from the start may well explain the absence of any mention of real-estate taxes: there was no need to specify who would pay taxes because the rent paid included the taxes from the beginning.

A final provision offers, it seems, additional perspective on the payment of taxes:

13. All eight families are responsible for lease payment and for adherence to the items of this contract, all for one, and one for all, and guarantee each other’s property. [page 6] However, should a settler want to resettle to another location and still owe taxes, Landlord Gering may, to his own protection, confiscate livestock and property from this settler. These shall be appraised as decided by a committee of honest individuals; the same as mentioned under Item 3 of this contract.  

This paragraph makes the most sense if ultimately the landlord was responsible for all taxes owed by his tenants. Thus, if a tenant wanted to leave and owed taxes, this landlord had the right to seize the tenant’s property in order to pay the taxes due.

In the end, the 1848 contract confirms some of our earlier conclusions about the payment of taxes and rent. For example, although taxes and rent could be separated (1804), most often the real-estate taxes due were the landlord’s responsibility but paid out of the rent collected, as shown below.

	landlord	renters
year 1	pays taxes out of rent collected	pay rent (which includes taxes)
year 2	pays taxes out of rent collected	pay rent (which includes taxes)
years 3–	pays taxes out of rent collected	pay rent (which includes taxes)

Most important, this lease reinforces our sense that there was no standard agreement; the terms could be whatever the landlord and renters wished. As always, the law of supply and demand led landlord and renter to mutually acceptable terms, even as the context and culture of the day gave shape to the specific contracts (e.g., provisions that the renters had to mill their grain at the landlord’s mill for his standard fee).

Having worked through three leases, we know a good deal more about the payment of and exemption from taxes than we we began. Whether or not that helps us understand the Benjamin Buller situation is the topic of the next post.


Work Cited

Ratzlaff, Rod, ed. 2016. Land Contract for Mennonite Colonists Resettling in the Village of Dosidorf, 1848. Translated from the German by Ute Brandenburg. Available online here.